Villa Monoi is a holiday home at the southern end of Playa Tamarindo located in the province of Guanacaste Costa Rica. This zone of Costa Rica belongs to an area of the most arid country affected by a pronounced dry season lasting one third of the year. The flora and fauna belong to the dry tropical forest and the region in general suffers from occasional droughts and water scarcity. The house is introverted since its location does not allow for the enjoyment of exterior views more than the groves of a green area contiguous to the property in the middle of a residential development.
In late 2011, we returned to Grenoble, a place of environmental experimentation with a previous project that made its mark on the ZAC de Bonne: the “Coming Out”.
This time, another challenge is tackled, the one of height – with the same desire to push the limits of ’experimentation with energy performance even further. In an attempt to resolve the issue of thermal bridges once and for all, balconies had to be eliminated.
Location: Lot CI1, secteur Cambridge ZAC Presqu’île, 38000 Grenoble, France
Photography: Luc Boegly and Sergio Grazia
Client: Cogedim
Project Management: Maison Édouard François, architect designer Aktis, architect of local operations Nicolas ingénieries, utilities and environment CTG, structure Verdier, terraces structure Editec, economics Socotec, inspection office, Health and Safety coordinator Kaema, geotechnics Sintegra, roads and utility services / external works
Cost:
€5.3m excl. VAT
€1,940 excl VAT / m² SHAB
Surface area Net floor area: 4,731 m² (5,174 y²) Inhabitable surface area: 2,730 m² (2,985 y²) – Separate terrace areas: 1,073 m² (1,173 y²)
The design for the new TBC Forum – located in Tbilisi, Georgia – proposes a transition from the traditional closed and introverted working model previously favoured in the banking industry, toward a flexible, open and responsive system.
The new TBC Forum proposes a cultural hub that will act as a catalyst for the development of a new area of the city, promoting socio-economic development through the creation of a financial knowledge centre and innovation platform.
UNStudio Team: Ben van Berkel with Frans van Vuure, Roman Kristesiashvili, Alex Kalachev, Filippo Lodi, Melinda Matuz, Raul Forsoni, Pere Maicas, Franck Fdida, Michele de Simone, Caterina Micucci , Matthew Harrison, Assaf Yizzak Cooremans, Nanang Santoso, Harlen Miller, Megan Hurford, Johanna Mencia, Fernando Herrera, Attilio Ranieri, Courtney Jones, Jae Geun Ahn, Elizabeth White, Ksymena Borczynska, Gys le Roux, Jung Jae Suh
Located on the northern east suburbs of Athens in Greece, the house is designed in a vertical axis due to the building coverage ratio. Therefore each floor has a specific use; the ground and first floor become the house’s living spaces and kitchen area with both direct accesses to the exterior landscape due to the sloped lot. The bedrooms are on the second floor along with a small playroom and the master bedroom is on the top floor connected with the roof terrace. This four-storey rectangular volume opens up in order to welcome light and life inside the house. The north facade swings slightly in order to absorb the west sunlight and at the same time encloses the main entrance and stairway of the house along with the lift and the house’s atrium. The opening gesture is underlined by using bright orange color on the hypotenuse wall of the triangle and raising the sense of an “ablaze” space. The colored wall is light-washed from above, and reflected upon all adjacent walls, creating a warm color filter that travels through the whole house. This triangle shaped space, is an interstitial void that connects the circulation zone with the private and living spaces, thus becomes the most influential and significant part of the house.
Casa Forbes is a single house that looks boldly on a hillside of Costa d’en Blanes with views over the entire Bay of Palma. In the way in which the hanging gardens of Babylon built a domesticated natural environment, the Casa Forbes provides the necessary horizontality in this seemingly impossible terrain.
The outer enclosure of oblique steel slats cut kinetically sieves the landscape as you approach its entrance. After overcoming the bath of views that hides behind them, the vision escapes you towards the garden roof, a fifth façade that displays aromas and colors in concert with a paved solarium worthy of a glass of cava … per day!
The house No.242 is situated in a housing estate in Bangkok, Thailand. The site is a 734 sq.m. elongated plot that orients north-south.
The priorities are to:
– Create a functional house for a family of 3 with 2 caretakers by using reusable materials from the tore down house as much as possible
– Keep all of the significant existing trees
– Reduce energy usage of the house
The project is a 7- storey building with 12 apartments on a hill in Iladalen with an exclusive rooftop garden for all the residents. The site is open and the apartments will have a view over the valley and/ or south towards the Oslo Fjord. The building adjoins the gable on an unfinished building and is forming a completion on the quarter at the junction Vøyensvingen and Claus Riis gate, and completes in this way the neighborhood. For the residents there will be a common kitchen on the roof, in affiliation to the roof garden. On the ground floor it will be benches and art for the public, integrated into the building.
The guiding design principle was to create a house that combines transparency with sustainability, forging a strong relationship between the villa and the landscape. The harmony between landscape and interior, architecture and nature, was a key design determinant, particularly regarding sight lines, materials, colours, and lighting. The house is designed from inside out, creating uninterrupted views to the surrounding nature while providing shelter and intimacy. All these aspects work together to ensure the house’s sense of timelessness.
BO Space is located in HE Park where used to be an old industry site and now a culture & innovation gathering place in Xixi Wetland in Hangzhou. In the designer’s view, the city is expanding way to fast that we are losing the old imprint of our city while we are losing our culture as well. Buildings are getting old, but we can keep its vitality through a design and transformation. Bo Space is not just a restaurant bar but also a complex space. It does not only provide people a place to stay but also presents a way of living. People can find out what they really like here, even if it is just a ray of sunshine, a picture show, a good meal, a slow pace, or a way back to life.
The project is divided into two parts, the fisrt one, massive, anchored to the site and materialized by a cubic white volume, and a second one covered of wood, with a lighter visual, is placed on the side of the site to form a long fence as visual protection on the road side. The living spaces are on the valley side, situated slightly higher than the natural ground, completely open on the valley. The tree protect it of overheating in the summer. A long covered “balcony terrace” follow the living spaces by projecting the space towards the view.
All the necessary functions for the life of a couple are found on the ground floor. A guest room and its sanitary space complete the program of this level. A pottery workshop is accessible from the entrance hall and overlooks the whole, like an watchtower, to enjoys a totally unobstructed view.
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